


The Ricochet Of Bullets

by orphan_account



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anti Steve, Avengers Family, Avengers Feels, BAMF Tony Stark, CACW, Captain America Civil War - Freeform, Clint Barton Redemption, Compound, Dad Stark, Defense squad, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hurt Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff Redemption, Parent Tony Stark, Pepperony - Freeform, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pro bucky, Protective Tony Stark, Squad, Teens, Tony Stark Defense Squad, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark's Daughter, U.N, Un - Freeform, United Nations, Vienna, back again, daughter - Freeform, father - Freeform, father daughter, i love him but hate him more, lol, new avengers team, phil back, stark daughter, tony stark is right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It barely took time to know that he didn't need Steve or anyone who left him after Siberia. They didn't care for him so why would he need to return the favor? Especially since he was now working with a newly-emerging Avengers team under UN supervision to protect the Earth, a team that cares and appreciates him, unlike some other particular people. Even aliens and a daughter are in that mix. But when you hear about the possibility of the world getting destroyed by a mad titan, that world is going to consider every one of its options which happens to include bringing in Rogers and his team. Tony doesn't appreciate the idea a single bit, but there is nothing he would not do for the world no matter how much they love or hate him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally said screw it to my other fic and decided that I could devote myself better and more to this idea, realizing how weak the other one was. So Platinum is now an archived idea in the back of my brain. Plus, knowing how much I love post civil war fics, I think this idea aligns much better with what I adore reading. Anyways, I hope you possibly enjoy this one. Thanks!!!!
> 
> So this story is going to cover many aspects of what could happen between Civil War and Infinity War (definitely an AU style, obviously). The first few chapters or so are going to be about an OC, Sophia Nars-Stark, or Tony Stark's daughter. I figure that it's prolly unwise to start with a new OC when people want to read the characters they know, but screw it I'm doing it meh way. But hopefully, you like it? Idk. XD

“-And so basically I just shot him in the leg, but he cackled like hell!”

Kamala, Peter, and Shuri snorted and bursted into laughter. Sophia couldn’t even keep her own face straight, her dimples popping out as she stopped containing her giggles. 

Tony smiled. He really couldn’t help but smile. It was the rarest of feelings to smile like he did. Smiling had become so lucky, and it actually was something to think about. The fact that he could smile just was...odd. At least to him. 

“Breakfast’s ready.” Natasha saw Vision finish off the blueberry pancakes and then the eventual scramble of teenagers coming for their food. Sophia thanked the android and started to eat her serving at the bar with Shuri on one side and Peter on her left. 

“I see that Vision’s making the pancakes this time instead of Shuri’s crazy method,” Clint commented as he walked into the room. 

“It wasn’t even that crazy!” Shuri argues loudly to reach the archer. “You see, you could’ve used lasers instea-”

“Save it, Wakanda whizz,” Tony says. “Eat your food, kiddo.”

The teenagers bit into their food, chewing and swallowing. Meanwhile, Carol came in with a confused face, dressed in some jeans and a heathered baby blue shirt. “Where’s Peter Q?”

“I think he and Rocket were checking something on the Milano,” Tony replies. “Something about a thing I could use for Peter’s spider suit if I wanted?”

Within the next few minutes, the Guardians had entered as well as Rhodey. Pepper had also pecked Tony on the cheek upon coming in, wearing a pearly-blush colored dress and her now darker-red locks tied into her signature ponytail. She had a meeting today with some potential business partners, so she had dressed presentably. There, thankfully, was enough time to take a few minutes and drink some orange juice for the busy woman. 

“Would you like any pancakes, Mrs. Stark?” Vision asks. 

“Oh, no thank you, Vision, time’s kinda tight.”

Sophia looked on her phone and snorted. “That prank video that we did on Clint? There’s like, sixty million views. We’re famous.”

Clint rolled his eyes. They had pranked him with a hell of a lotta Reddi-whip, and it had become the number one trending video on Youtube within an hour.

He directed his eyes towards the redhead in her pitch-white leather jacket. “Isn’t T’Challa coming over?”

“He’s not coming here. We’re meeting him at the UN meeting in a few days. At least I think we are, Carol?” She asks for confirmation. 

Carol nods. “The meeting’s at noon in Vienna. You might wanna wear a dress.”

Sophia furrows her brows. Dresses weren’t her favorite clothing article. She liked how they could look, but she found that she looked better with her legs covered with the thought that her size-twelve body had somewhat plumper legs. However, she settles for telling her that she had one in mind. 

 

Tony and Pepper took a seat at the table along with Carol, Rhodey, and the Guardians. Like they did some mornings, they had a breakfast with everyone in the same room. They hadn’t had a breakfast together in a while, though. On most mornings, some people ate and some didn’t. The people who ate usually ate something small such as a granola bar or a bowl of cereal, possibly a protein shake. But this was a special morning in comparison to the others. The sky was even a bright empty blue that domed above the compound, its sun shining in glee through the windows. It made the grass look greener, and the trees gently blew with the soft wind. 

 

Sophia looked to the scene of adults eating and conversing at the table, the light of day making the compound brighter. Her best friends ate beside her. 

 

She found breakfast to be the most important meal of the day. 

 

When they finished, Kamala put the dishes in the dishwasher so she wouldn’t need to later. Peter suggested that they go upstairs to start the next video game level. So Sophia grabbed a water bottle for both her and Peter, them getting the most thirsty out of all of them. The five-foot-eight teenager was the last to jog up the stairs to reach the rec room, the room now left to the ten adults plus Groot...wherever he was. 

 

“They’re gonna be pissed at us tomorrow,” Clint breaks the silence. “They expected us to have a hold of Rogers and them by now. But of course, they end up causing something to get blown up in Belarus. Fifty people dead. They’re furious.”

“And you were with them seven months ago,” Rhodey retorts. 

“Yeah, well I got my brain back. They didn’t.”

“Took a while, though,” Tony comments. 

“Yeah, well, you are partially responsible. I decided to turn myself in and you talked to me from there. Laura was going to explode…” He trailed a bit. He still remembered thinking about what exactly he had just done, being around the practical terrorists. When he finally got to hug his kids again, it was at that moment that imagining the captain was a scary image. 

 

He fucked up bad. 

 

It was even worse that it took longer to realize that. 

 

“But yeah, the press is going to freak no matter where they are,” Natasha adds.  It’s not like they’ll really be able to get into the meeting. I’m just worried about them harassing the kids.”

“Agreed. Especially Sophia. She’s the one that controls fire and can move stuff with her head. They fear her more than they could ever fear Wanda.”

At the mention of her, Tony instantly gave a response. “She might glare them down to death before they can even ask her something. You have to admit she can be as scary as hell.”

Pepper contributed to the concept. “One time, Sophia was asked by someone if she was Sophia Stark. She glared at him and told him ‘no, I’m Batman.’.”

“That’s my girl. Purest of sarcasm.”

“From her dad. There’s two Tony’s. It’s still scary.”

“Agreed,” Natasha says. She took a sip of orange juice. “But she’s taken on so much. I highly doubt that a few reporters in her face could bother her.”

“Shuri shouldn’t be bothered by it either. Kamala and Peter, though? Peter, especially. I don’t see him being able to just walk right past reporters too easily,” Carol surmises. 

“They’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”

“Eh, the journalists are a bunch of jackasses. They’ll get over their whining!” Rocket comments, the shortest person at the table.

 

“You don’t have a dress?!”

 

It was obviously Sophia’s voice. It was absolutely something she’d say. 

 

“Well, let’s go get you one, then. Plus, I would be satisfied with being inside a Nordstrom.”

“Soph-”

“Oh wait, no, that’s why you don’t have a dress! Religion. Right. Screw it, though, let’s get you something that looks nice for the fun of it-nuh-uh, don’t resist me spoiling you with that face, it’s fun!”

Of course, Sophia said all of this as she walked backwards down the stairs to face Kamala. Her personality that matched Tony’s flourished in her voice and face. She looked all like her mom and none like him, but there was always something in the way she talked that made her sound 99.98% like Tony. 

“Are you sure-”

“Positive. It’s fun to spoil my friends. Besides, I have ideas! I’m imagining either lavender or bright orange-don’t ask, I just have an eye for colors! Besides, some intense colors would look really nice with your skin color! You’re driving, though, since I don’t have a license, yet!”

Sophia reached the bottom of the stairs. “Can we go out? The sun is shining, the grass is green, and I’m already dressed!”

“Uhhhh-” Carol starts, not exactly sure if letting them out of the compound a day before a major UN meeting could be stretched. 

“Yeah, just be safe, Soph! Please?” Tony mildly pleads as he always does.

“Pff!” The fourteen-nearly-fifteen-year-old smirks. “Always!” She chirped. Peter and Shuri also came down now, the redhead letting her friends past to then leave last. “Bye, Dad! Love you!”

“Love you, too!”

 

But she may not have heard. She started down the stairs quite fast. 

  
  
  
  


Tony rubbed his eyes. It’d easily become harder to absorb new information-particularly shocking information-after knowing that his parent’s death wasn’t just an unfortunate car crash. It’d been hard to absorb Pepper leaving-even though they were back together, though. It’d been hard to absorb Steve really pulled the stunt he did. But he knew that he would not fully absorb five aliens and one human landing their ship on the compound’s surrounding grass telling him that he’s a known intergalactic war hero for nuking the Chitauri among the other news they were originally here to talk about. 

 

Tony softly chuckled. “War hero, huh? That’s, uh...not really true.”

“Well, you destroyed a whole Chitauri army with one weapon. That is the kinda thing that would make you known as an intergalactic war hero up in space,” Peter Quill replies. He was the only human. He was the “leader”, it seemed. Otherwise, there was a green woman, a shirtless guy, a raccoon, a black-eyed girl, and a talking tree with no vocabulary. He never thought people in space could be so different from Earth. 

Tony sighed. “It was either that or the whole city of nine million people get killed. So I chose the Chitauri, obviously.” The mention of what had given him nightmares had really stung, but he had to try his best not to show it. Not exactly the best impression if he ended up having a panic attack. 

“But anyway, why else are you here?”

Peter shuffled with his hands. “There’s a woman-well, she’s more like a teenager that looks like a woman-it’s crazy that she’s just fourteen-”

Gamora cut him off, wanting to get to the point. “There is a teenage girl who just killed Kaiton, an ally of Thanos. Kaiton had put her mom into a coma last year. While she is still on Xandar to hopefully wake up, I guess her daughter wanted revenge, killing Kaiton in his own home.”

Tony blinked. “Uh, wow...Geez, um, what’s her name?”

Gamora inhaled. “Her name is Sophia Nars.”

Tony’s eyes had a slight crinkle. “I’m sorry, did you say Nars?”

The assassin nodded. “Her mother’s name was November Nars. She’s from Earth-”

“I know, I went to MIT with her!” He exclaimed. The flash of her red hair, blue-green eyes, and her vibrant smile haunted his brain. Her voice was still clearly heard in his ears, and he remembered her gorgeous body…

Tony snapped to reality, however. “She’s in a coma?” He asked softly. The idea of her just laying there motionless made his heart sink. 

“She’s stable, but yes, in a coma in a Xandarian hospital. Authorities have not taken in her daughter. Apparently, she’s highly volatile and her ship has a stealth mode which makes her nearly impossible to track. But now that she killed Kaiton, she’s definitely at the top of Nova Corps. Priority list.”

“I’m sorry, Kaiton? He’s an ally of who again?”

“Thanos,” Gamora replies. 

“Who?”

The Guardians stared at him like he just shot himself on purpose, or lit himself on fire. 

“I’m sorry, people here on Earth don’t really know of much outside of this planet, and neither do I.”

“And you’re a war hero? Pff! Yeah, right!”

The shirtless man, Drax, not known to Tony, kicks the raccoon. 

Gamora sighs. “You might want to sit down, Mr. Stark-”

“Tony, please.”

“...It’s a lot to explain.”

So for a short bit, Gamora had explained Thanos to the billionaire. He was a mad titan aspiring to destroy the universe, and Kaiton was a loose ally of his until he was killed. 

“And her name is what again?”

“Sophia Nars. She’s fourteen.”

Freezing was easy for Tony, who remembers exactly what happened fourteen years ago. They had briefly dated, so of course, he had sex with her. But in the same year, he got a phone call that really shook him.

Tony never pegged Nove who loved children as someone who would abort her child. Abortion? An abortion? No, he saw Nove as someone who would’ve told him. He saw her as someone who would’ve raised her with or without him, even though she would’ve wanted him to be there for their kid...But Tony was absolutely sure now that she had lied. She went through all of that lying when she could’ve just said nothing at all. 

He wondered if his as-sarcastic-as-him-girlfriend was campaigning for heartbreaker of the year, because she won in a landslide.

Tony exhaled. “Are you telling me she’s my daughter?”

They said nothing. It said ‘yes’ though in the most powerful way.

He never thought he’d have a kid. God, he never thought he’d be able to settle down. He wouldn’t have found it that surprising if someone he had a one night stand with got pregnant...But Nove told him she had an abortion and she let him live a lie for fourteen years? That made his breath hitch. The idea of the woman he thought he knew seem like a stranger. Except it was even worse, because he was sure that she was the very opposite. 

Tony found the will to speak, but his voice felt weird coming out of his mouth. “So my...daughter...is up in space alone?”

Gamora nodded. 

“And she just murdered an ally of a titan? ...God…”

Peter looked at this man. He knew he didn’t know what he felt like-he’d only just met him, too, but he gently continued after a moment of his contemplation. “You’re her only other living relative. She’s also hard to track, and we think she knows who you are to her.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“We need you to come with us to help Nova Corp find her. She can’t be out on her own roaming around space as she does. If she goes against another ally of Thanos, she’ll get herself killed. Her beating Kaiton was some sort of miracle.”

Tony blinked. God forbid it, as well, but he had a stammer. “Find her in...in space?”

“Yeah?” He confirmed slowly. 

Tony had images of the deep navy darkness that had domed above him when he destroyed the Chitauri. Maybe if his biggest nightmare wasn’t there, he would’ve admired the stars and the ethereal light. But no. Of course, something he thought of in the highest regards got screwed up in his head. He nearly died...But his daughter was up there. Wherever she was, she was alone. She’d killed the one who put her mom in a coma, possibly never to wake up.

 

He tried to imagine what she could’ve possibly looked like. Sophia had her mom’s auburn locks, shining in the sunlight in the most gorgeous way just like her mom’s did when they went to the beach once. He saw her porcelain skin, flawless with a few freckles. He saw her eyes...both ways. Maybe they were her mother’s jaw-dropping teal, or maybe they were his russet browns. Not that, of course, he knew what exactly she looked like. God, he may’ve had it all wrong. Maybe she wasn’t smiling-scratch that, because she wasn’t...Or at least, if she was anything like him, she wasn’t smiling. 

 

Tony looked at these people. They strolled into the club telling him he had a fourteen-year-old assassin daughter who killed a powerful ally of Thanos for putting her mom in a coma. She was out there, and who knew what could happen to her with the news of a sadist being dead…

 

“When do we need to leave?”

  
  


 

 

Fear wasn’t in his vocabulary. Maybe he’d look up what it meant, now, thinking of how he briefly heard it to be being shaken by something...The pitch black body in front of him was definitely coordinating with the concept. 

A black body. It was a more womanly body, seeing the plump curve to her hips. She couldn’t have been a known assassin, though...She would’ve been thinner, judging by the little plumpness to her stomach. 

 

The helmet terrified him, most. No face. She was faceless. She was silent, and any motion of hers would not be...good.

 

The helmet dissipated, revealing a baffling-ly more innocent face-but it was colder than Thanos’s heart...At least he thought so. With eyes as frozen as hers, she could compete in that contest.

 

“Don’t call for your guards, Kaiton. They’re dead.”

 

His mouth shut at the voice. She looked young. Maybe twenty. Her voice matched that. But her very motions at this moment matched someone who had lived for a very long time. 

 

“How did you get into my house?”

“How does someone get a papercut? Easily.”

“And what do you plan to do?”

“A little talking might be beneficial. I dunno, killing you is tempting. Besides, you’re an easy target. Look at you, willing to listen instead of stabbing me with your spear.”

“My spear is five feet away from me.”

“Then I suggest you don’t grab it. You’re already down this road, and you are nowhere near powerful enough to plow a new one to the side. You’re stuck with me, buddy, so you’ll listen to what I have to say.”

 

He felt his breath hitch at her words. Kaiton didn’t think moving would help him either. Not even his navy blue hand twitched. 

 

She sighed. “Okay, we’ll start simple. Why you put my mom in a coma, huh? She might never wake up directly because of you, and only you. You shot her and now she lays asleep in a Xandarian hospital. What exactly made her a target of yours? Or was she random, something to blow off your sadist steam?”

“She was working with the Nova Corp to build weapons. We can’t have that happening.”

“And you were trying to kill her?”

“Yes.”

She brushed her thumb against her hip a single time. “I could kill you, too. You wouldn’t hurt anyone else, that way. It’d be nice for some to live without the idea that you could kill them. You go around and you’ve slaughtered whole families, thinking you’re the king. Well, lemme tell you something, buddy. In this universe, there is no king. There is only an empress.”

Kaiton rolled his eyes. He did so without shame and conscious. 

 

She looked at the window. It was a floor-to-ceiling window, showing whoever approached the window space. The stars out there glowed in an unparalleled glory. The white-blue at the center of each dot illuminated the room and her creamy skin. It was beautiful. Except he didn’t deserve it. But the voiceless shared with everyone. 

 

He chuckled as she took a few steps towards the emptiness. “Who do you think you can save? A sobbing child? A screaming mother? A begging father? Every one of them will die. They will die because that is how this universe will work until this universe ends. Even if you save someone from death...You can’t save everyone.”

Her body didn’t change stance. The knife had pierced his neck, its position still was frozen in the air, his black blood streaming out to stain his clothes and calloused skin.

Her body’s slow turn was haunting. Her boot’s clop with too much silence between each one was even more so. Her walk ended with bare centimeters between his and her face. 

Her hand rose to let her fingers one-by-one go down to snatch the knife gracefully. The blade started to inch in. His noises she found pitiful just as he found her mother, she was sure. 

 

It now stuck out at the back.

 

“I can and I will.”

 

Sophia pulled the knife out from his neck, his body collapsing. It didn’t hang from the sharpness anymore. It lost itself on the freezing gray hythestone. Not even the light shared itself with his body. It was relieved. 

 

The redhead wiped the knife against a cloth in his kitchen, making it clean again. She walked away with no bother to cleanse of the mess she made. It was a good mess, though, for an ally of Thanos was dead. 

 

No one was out there. She stepped mostly around the bodies. The wounds were definitely not caused by her. They were all laser blasts from the Stardust, a ship with state of the art technology...Her mom’s ship. 

 

Sophia set the sleek black metal out from the space rock Kaiton called home before his death. The ship went to autopilot, its coordinates to a position sixteen clicks from Ovarina. She was considering settling down there if she didn’t go to Earth. It was a gorgeous planet, a pure dreamworld with ethereal landscapes. It never rained and was always sunny in the day, the moon out or the stars shining at night. There were endless fields of gentle gray about three inches off the ground. She’d laid on it before. It was soft, explaining why some people harvested it for clothing on the planet. It wasn’t filled with insects, and the dirt underneath stuck to itself and nothing else that touched it. Even in the day, it was a fantasy. The sun made the cloudless blue above her feel ant-like, and the breeze made her jaw drop. There were also the beaches where the sand was a gentle cream tone like her skin, the warm water flowing over her feet. She’d never seen such blue water, and she’d never seen it so clean. She’d never imagined a world could be indescribable as it was. She’d never been so alive.

 

So of course, Sophia wanted to live there. 

 

But the beauty wasn’t on her mind, now. Her head fell back and her mom invaded her head. Her motionless state haunted her. It stayed there, and it made Sophia want to throw something against the wall. But she wouldn’t...She couldn’t. 

 

The pain made it not worth moving, at the moment. 

 

Besides, she’d done her movement today. She’d killed Kaiton.   
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol I took some time to update. Believe me, I've been busy. But hey, I made it, didn't I? On Sunday night, leaving on Wednesday for a three day non-electronic trip to a ranch in the middle of nowhere? Thanks, school, I appreciate it. Leave me some love for when I get back, will ya? (it's optional and a half-hearted joke, not liking this won't murder me in my sleep i promise lol)

The beeping made her consciousness spring. 

Sophia was confused with herself. She was absolutely sure the last time she slept in a chair was possibly fourth grade. It was a day where she was incredibly exhausted, though she didn’t remember how. 

She hadn’t had the energy to even realize she was that excruciatingly tired.

What the redhead could get into her head was a blur. An alert about something approaching which turned out to be a ship.

Sophia, however, stumbled onto the floor when she realized what ship it was.

“SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT-”

She yelled this with no breath taken as she grabbed her blaster off of her living room wall holster. She then sprinted back to the cockpit, nearly diving onto the screendesk. She slammed her finger against the call answer button. “Hi…” She greeted, though out of breath. “How’re you, Quill?”

“Sophia, we’re gonna need you to lower your shields and board our sh-”

“I’m not leaving this hunk of metal if it kills me!” She argues loudly. 

“Alright, then you need to deactivate your shields and let us board yours!”

Sophia huffed, glaring out intensely at the ship. Peter Quill and Rocket sat in the front seats of the Milano with people behind them. 

“I’m lowering them now. Don’t try to pull anything on my ship. Could get you killed, and I rather not kill more people. I got better things to do. Like sleeping.”

It was odd that she was truthful, in her opinion. Sophia lowered the shields but activated the defense mechanism if a weapon that wasn’t hers was fired. Their ship lowered underneath hers so the pull-beam could bring them through the floor in the room beside the living room. 

Sophia typed in her passcode to open up the floor shutters, the metal coming open and the aqua beam light bringing people one by one up. 

Peter Quill had been first. Her face, however, had no new contour for every Guardian member that came up until she saw a particularly known non-Guardian member land on her floor.

“Oh fu-”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Tony says in return. 

Sophia just starts to laugh nervously, her eyes not twitching. “You, uh, heheh...You can’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“Well, well-uh,  _ well _ -”

“Do you know?”

“I know a lot of things, including what you’re referring to.” Sophia prayed that he knew what she was referring to. She did not want to explain that to him. 

“Good, that makes it a lot easier.”

Sophia just nods and turns her attention to Quill. “Heyyyyyyyyy Guardians! How nice to seeee youuuu!” She says in the most sheepish way possible in the history of a sheepish voice.

“You just killed the ally of a mad titan,” Gamora states straightly. The green assassin wasn’t very amused by her antics. 

“It was pretty fucking easy, he didn’t even try to get a weapon!” She tried to say through her laughing. 

“You also killed his guards.”

“Uh, well, the ship’s blasters are highly sophisticated and he has terrible guards. But um, god, I just woke up. Um, why are you here-sorry for the, uh, laughter.”

 

It was Nove. It was 100% Nove, Tony realized. 

 

Oh god. 

 

Quill cleared his throat. “Well, uh, you can’t just be out here doing as you please-”

“Oh so  _ now _ the Nova Corp gives a shit about me? Sheesh!”

“And Mr. Stark here is your only other living relative.”

“Why’s he in space, by the way, I didn’t think he liked space after four years ago?” Sophia asked quickly, but choosing her words carefully at the same time. She could understand that space was scary. It was actually a pretty terrifying place, sometimes. When there’s murderers, assassins, rapists, and mad titans, you can’t exactly tell someone they’re a pansy for fearing them. Sophia understood Stark’s personal case, however, or could at least guess he had a personal case in the first place. After the Battle Of New York and the Chitauri situation, she finally looked into his Shield file. It was curiosity, really, but it became understanding. Somehow it had records of panic attacks and such things. Sophia was no psychologist, but she could understand why he had those types of issues. When you blow up a whole army of aliens, you think about it. Thinking can bring many different reactions including pain and fear. Even when it’s over, it’s still repeating in your head. You can still see it and imagine different scenarios. It’s a curse that you can’t rid of. 

She had lived it. 

“I came up here to get you,” Tony stepped in, facing the girl against the wall with her arms crossed. He had to ignore the mention of what was four years ago. Of course, New York. 

“Okay, so I’m cargo to get?”

“What, no-”

“I’m just kidding, you know that, right?”

“Yeah well I just met you, so I don’t know all your quirks.”

“I was planning to let you live your life without me and go to Ovarina, and I was confident it was a pretty good plan-especially for you!”

“Well, kid, change of plan. Sucks to be you.”

Sophia opened her mouth but shut it. The way he was talking...No, this wasn’t what she thought he’d be like. He’d be slower-much slower to accept the fact he had a daughter. This man faced likely his worst fear to come get her. That wasn’t normal at all. It simply didn’t make sense to her.  Sophia didn’t even find herself worth the risk for him particularly to bring her back to Earth. She may’ve been his daughter, but she was not his baby girl. She didn’t have the opportunity to be that to anyone but her mom, her only actual parent.

 

But Sophia eventually opened her naturally salmon lips again.  “Soooooooooooo where would you take me? Actually, no, I have better questions for you, how do you plan to protect me? People are gonna come after me eventually because I killed Kaiton.”

“Why did you even kill him?”

“Well, when you have a near dead mom, you’re gonna want the near killer of the near-dead mom to be dead himself soooooooo-”

“How could you even do it?”

“Talent.” Sophia starts off. “I’ll grab my stuff. Or I could, oh I dunno, drive my own ship to Earth! I promise I won’t run away-in fact, I can let you monitor my ship course from your screen on the Milano!” She yells as she headed to her room. Sophia didn’t hear a response though. Instead, when she started yanking her favorite leather jackets off their hangers, the man she knew to be her biological father knocked on her open door. 

“I know I’m a pain in the ass, but it doesn’t mean you have to bring it to your house if you don’t want to.”

“Yeah, well, you’re my daughter-”

“You feel obligated to say that too?” Sophia snapped. She dipped her head down. “I’m sorry...I just don’t understand how you’re so willing to accept me. It’s nuts, in my opinion. I disagreed with my mom when she said you’d take me in if you ever found out about me.”

Tony shrugs. “I kinda did. Your mom told me she was pregnant but that she aborted you.”

Sophia’s face grew to disgust. She didn’t think her mom would be that nasty in a way like that. She thought she knew her mom pretty well. She had a grip on what she’d do and why she’d do it. Whether it was business or a personal thing, she was sure she could predict what she’d do. However, telling someone you aborted their child when she didn’t? No. She would’ve predicted she’d tell them she was pregnant and that they could do whatever from there. But apparently, November Nars thought much differently fourteen years ago. 

“ _ Why _ ?”

Tony stepped into her room, abandoning his former position at the door, standing in front of her bed where she sat on it’s corner. “I don’t know. Maybe she was upset. It sounds like something she’d do if she was upset.”

“Then maybe I don’t know my mom or you don’t know her well enough, because doing something that harsh is screwed up for her.”

“You didn’t know her well enough. Fourteen years, Sophia? Try twenty. I knew her for twenty years before I never talked to her again.”

“People change whether it’s big or small...Like you.”

“How so?”

Sophia shrugs in a similar way her biological father did. “You were an alcoholic weapon tycoon. You became a philanthropic superhero. That’s change.”

“Yeah it was, but I’ve never seen your mother as someone to change.”

“Believe me, she’s human too.”

A beep rang out of her room’s alarm by the door, red light blinking. Sophia sighed and stood up to head to deal with the situation. “Must be the Nova Corp now that they care that there’s a fourteen-year-old-assassin on the loose.”

Tony followed the abrupt teenager out towards her destination, looking at the two black leather chairs sitting in her rather-large cockpit filled with tech he’s never seen before. His emotions changing quickly, proved by the growth of his eyes. 

Sophia powered her ship blasters, but not firing them. “I call ‘em pornos, but the species' name is Ulethers. They like to ransack ship for women, sometimes men, for you know what.” Their ships were dark green, scratched up, and small with tiny windows. There were two of them hovering feet away from her much-more-sophisticated ship. It was odd how they thought that they thought that they could stand a chance against her Nova Corp-grade weapons...Well, with her own modifications making it five-times more powerful. 

He could’ve shuddered at the idea. “Are they after you?”

“Me and possibly Gamora plus Mantis. They know the Guardians are here, so they’ll take all they can get. Though we’ll probably be able to kill ‘em. They’re very weak and have no common sense.”

“I already got the idea of no common sense.”

Sophia turned on her ship comm speaker, glaring out at the ships. “Turn away now or you’re not gonna be to breathe simply ‘cause you’ll be dead!”

“Macushca tang shang hok shuppa puss!”

“I don’t speak your language but I do speak gun!” She retorts, firing her blasters. Sophia initially thought they’d die at the instant with a burning in the sky. However, it turns out they had shields. Uletheran ships didn’t have shields. 

“Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I guess they made a deal with a weaponry and defense company because those ships never have shields!”

“BANGKON!” One yelled. 

Their ships fired at hers. Sophia slammed the shields up, but her ship was bumped back. An alarm went off reporting minor damage, but she could ignore it. There were self-healing metals coating the actual yangton metal, so the ship was okay. However, she still needed to steer the ship away. 

“What’s going on?!” Quill yells, rushing to the front. “Uletherans?! Really?!”

“Yeah, and they have a weapons upgrade!” Sophia responds. She pressed a few overhead buttons and had the ship zoom away at its top speed. “Xandar’s jumpoint is only five clicks away! I can get us there, just hang on!”

She pushed a brake lever with a sharp noise. It was shocking to Tony, who watched closely, on how precise every turn and blast was. She was, at least he thought, an astounding pilot. Sophia was twisting and turning and blasting them into oblivion, only to see more come into the picture. It turned out to be an army, and it seemed to be no problem. 

“You know, kid, you seem like an okay pilot, but-” Rocket starts to sneer and taking a few steps. 

“Touch my perfectly clean leather seats or newly cleaned controls and your head will hang on my living room wall!”

That sounded like something Nove would say if he touched something she was making at a time when she didn’t want help. 

Rocket grumbled something Sophia didn’t care to try to hear. She was too busy saving their lives to ask what he said. The redhead sharply turned the ship, nearly knocking Tony off his feet. 

“I am Groot!”

Tony’s eyes found a tiny tree sitting in a chair. “Hey, she’s trying!”

Quill’s jaw dropped. “You can understand him?! Dude, it took me so long to understand what he says-”

“Oh I can too!” Sophia pipes. “Watch it sproutling, it’s better than you getting killed!”

“How do you understand him so fast?!”

“I think it’s a smart-people thing! Well, actually just so I won’t make you feel too bad, I’ll say it’s a highly intelligent being thing!” Sophia smirks through her words. She shot her ship blaster at another ship, continuing to spiral out of control into another ship and another until it became a monstrously large domino effect with maybe twenty-five other ships. 

Sophia laughed, which gave Tony a weird feeling.

“They’re like bowling pins! It’s all just a game, to me, because they’re such dumbasses-Oh SHIT!”

Sophia halted the ship so hard she nearly slammed her head to the front window and everyone behind her nearly stumbled onto the floor if it wasn’t for nearby objects. She sighed in relief when it turned out just to be a few Nova Corp. ships. She thought they were Tuskangans, an ugly maroon-skinned slavery species from an extremely isolated but populated planet. 

The redhead turned on her com, only guessing that Denarian Dey was there. “You there, Dey, cause I can only guess that you are ‘cause you know you love me!” She jokes through her question. 

“You have a lot to explain, Nars.”

“Believe me, I’m always something to explain,” She grinned. 

* * *

 

Nova Prime wasn’t...well actually, she was a bit entertained. However, she was overall not exactly the most entertained. She was only relieved Sophia wasn’t killed. 

 

“Miss Nars, I’m happy you are alright after that scuffle with the Uletherans.”

“Pff! It was only a temporary nuisance, really,” The redhead responds. She had walked in front with Peter Quill in a different outfit being a quite warm one. As it turned out, not surprising Tony, the season on Xandar was different from Earth. It was winter, currently, so it was cold with a light layer of snow, but it was slowly melting with the sun out. So she didn’t dress lightly, and the others didn’t either. Quill had let Tony borrow a burgundy jacket of his, a leather one that fit perfectly over him.

“No one got hurt,” The redhead finished. “It’s nice to see you again, though. How is my mom doing, if it’s alright to ask?”

Nova Prime didn’t mind, actually. She found it to be possibly a better idea for her to know the updated situation with her mother. “Yes, do you want to see her?”

“Um, there’s someone you should meet, first.” Sophia motioned to Tony. “This is Tony Stark. He’s an Earthean billionaire, one of the brightest minds on the planet, and the guy who killed off the Chitauri in 2012. He turns out to be my...dad,” She finished hesitantly. 

Nova Prime looked to the billionaire. “Yes, we’ve heard much about you since then. Welcome to Xandar, Mr. Stark. I understand this is your first time on another planet?”

It was. It was his first time going into space ever since he steered a nuke into space. It was his first time going onto another planet period. It was his first time he ever saw the daughter whom he though his old lover aborted. It was his first time seeing tech and society in such different fashion. It was a lot of firsts, and a lot of firsts to absorb. But he didn’t go into detail. 

“Yeah, it is. It’s quite cold, though. Is it winter all year round?” He asked, his eyes flickering to the window where some wet and patchy snow stuck to the ground.

“Oh no, it’s usually very mild here, or the equivalent to an Earthean spring. But please, make yourself comfortable here. If there’s anything you need or if you have any questions you can let me or any Nova Corp staff know. Miss Nars also knows many things about this planet and things in general, so she is also of some service.”

“Um, great. Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Sophia pointed towards the right hallway where she would go to find her mom. “I’m gonna go see my mom, if anyone wants or doesn’t wanna join me. Not like she cares. She’s pretty asleep.” With those words, she started down the hallway with the intentions of getting to the elevators at the edge of the hall. 

Tony’s reluctant, wondering if he should do it, but he eventually follows and catches up to be beside her. “I’m sorry, but there’s been a few big questions going through my head.”

“I was listed as a help source so you can ask whatever you want.”

“How did you and Nove get here?”

“Not to brag, but my mom was one of the best weapons designers on the planet, except she was more of a consultant versus entrepreneur. She collaborated with the U.S, Europe, even Wakanda-which has vibranium. However, she knew a lot of people, and some had secrets and they talked and talked and they finally decided that she would move to Xandar in extreme secrecy to do some weapon designing.”

“What about school and stuff?”

“I didn’t care about my friends. They’d forget about me soon enough.”

“Forget you?” His brows creased. 

“Not like I’m an introvert, I’m just really bad at finding friends that include me. Besides, I’m smart enough to take a year or two off of school. The plan was to go back to Earth for college, or at least for me to. I go to a high school here. No major friends, but there’s some pretty chill people. It’s also more diverse, so that’s cool.”

Tony absorbed the words and simply nodded. “What colleges? MIT?” He asked with internal hope. He didn’t know, but maybe she was exactly like him. Not everyone spoke his technological language. The last person who did was Bruce, and he didn’t know where he was, sadly. 

“MIT, Vanderbilt, maybe Harvard. I’m not too good at deciding between tech and business. My mom is pretty business-y since she had a home building business. She’s techy, too, but it was more of a second occupation or a hobby. You’re the techy one with tech as your main forte. So I really don’t know, for sure. I’m leaning towards the idea of entrepreneur, though. I don’t absorb the knits and bits of technology as much as I do with other stuff. But hey, anything could happen.” The words had rolled off her tongue so easily that they were in the elevator before she realized it. She pressed the screen-number-dial and it sent them up to the two-hundred-eighth floor within a few seconds. The duo stepped out and Sophia muttered the room number to herself before she spotted it only a few feet down the left hall. She opened its door and her heart started speeding. Sophia didn’t care to think about that, though. It’d been a while...A while was actually a real while. It’d been seven months since she was shot. Sophia went off on her own two months after. 

His face fell down and apart. Nove just laid there with no sign of moving. A few things were hooked to her, but much less than how it would be on Earth. The screen monitor stood on the wall, her vitals running smoothly for a woman in a coma. Her auburn locks were a little longer...and...thicker? No, Tony just had a bad memory, he guessed to himself. 

“Surprise, surprise, Mom! He hasn’t had a heart attack yet!”

“You were speculating about that?”

“That Leipzig incident seemed incredibly stressful,” She had observed. “You have to admit, though, that’s a lot of money with those crushed cars. I had said bless her heart about Wanda Maximoff until she had a fit and money burned with those cars.”

Tony hummed in response. 

Sophia looked at her mom again. It was harder, this time, then when she walked in talking like she was awake. She wasn’t, though. She couldn’t roll her eyes or make a retort. Her mind was trapped within itself and couldn’t escape. Five months ago, it made her fists curl and it made her so still, it was something she wanted out of. So, of course, Sophia went away. She didn’t give a damn if her mom would want that, or not. She wanted some peace. And at this point, for her, she felt she deserved it. Some months, Sophia thought to herself. That was the plan. The plan was to have some months to bounce around, collect some money, and settle on Ovarina until college or even Earth. With the arrival of her biological dad, the months were over. Ovarina was out of the picture. 

“Nope, I regret it,” Sophia announces. “I’ll be outside unless you want to go with me to find our rooms. I think they mentioned yours was next door to mine.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Sophia stepped out of the room and Tony didn’t do anything. 

He’d seen her sleep. She was beautiful when she slept. It was funny how beauty-sleep was actually real, though, and he realized that one morning when she was sleeping comfortably with the majority of the comforter on her. He didn’t pull the covers towards himself, though. She could sleep pretty lightly, sometimes, or she slept so heavily that putting an ice cube on her face wouldn’t wake her. There was no in-between, so he did not take his chances. 

But no. She wasn’t on her side or in his arms. November Nars slept and she wanted to wake up...if she was still similar, at least, fourteen years ago.

He found the ability to speak taken from his mouth when he tried. The same had happened with Happy. Except that was Happy. This was his November. November may never wake up. 

It was crazy how your mouth could dry from how he took so much energy to absorb everything. So Tony didn’t say much in total. 

“I miss you, Nove,” Tony whispered. “...I’m sorry I was never there for you when you were pregnant. But your daughter turned out...she turned out as the most intelligent and beautiful replica of you there could ever be. When I found out that Sophia existed, I was relieved to be right...How would my November be able to give up the possibility of having someone so seemingly-amazing in their life? ...I know I just met her, Nove, but she’s too much like you to think of her as nothing but great. I don’t know if that’s weird, or what...God, I never talked to Happy this much when he was in a coma. He’s doing well...And Pepper. We broke up, but who knows, miracles happen...I miss you though, god…”

When Tony stopped, he didn’t truly realize what he had even said. 

His sigh had a slight shake. 

He couldn’t just leave her on this planet

* * *

It had been quick in the oddest way. They’d started back to Earth within the next two days. The Guardians came with them as a precaution of a sort. Nova Prime had recommended it, and Tony didn’t exactly mind...It just felt...off. It was a team of people with him. He’d socialized with them on the way back. They were different people, but he found a liking to them. He particularly liked talking to Quill, who had a Zune until he replaced it. A Zune? No, he couldn’t let that man have a Zune. He just found that to be sad. But he, otherwise, had a few things in common with him-or they at least just clicked really well together. It was odd, but he hadn’t felt that at all in...what felt like forever.

Gamora he hadn’t talked to very much, but he so far had no aversion to her. She may have been an assassin as well as the “daughter” of Thanos, but this only stuck in his head until he talked to her. Gamora didn’t have a trace of “mad” on her like Thanos seemed to. Drax was...interesting. His lack of understanding sarcasm and metaphorical language was something he hadn’t seen before. But hey, at least he wasn’t un-appreciative of it like some were. The alien had also mentioned what it was like with his daughter before her murder. It stung to hear her fate, at first, but Tony loosened when he started to talk about how it was when she was Sophia’s age. According to Drax, Sophia was innocent like Camaria. Tony had never looked at Sophia as “innocent”. But when he thought about it...he could see it just slightly. 

Tony got an absolute kick out of Rocket. That raccoon was a bigger asshole than him. Like him, however, he liked engineering and gadgets. So if he wasn’t such a dick about Tony having Earthean technology which was “primitive” to galactic tech, maybe they’d get along somewhat better. They weren’t very bad, though, so far. 

Groot was cute. No, he was adorable. He was a tiny tree! A talking. Tiny. Tree. Groot only said three words, but he could understand the brown-green baby perfectly. No one could comprehend how Tony could do it, though. Especially Rocket and Quill who had taken forever to translate what he was saying in their heads.   
  


They were different from the Avengers. When he thought about it, the idea was actually kinda hurtful. The Avengers never got along well enough for long enough. The only time they were okay was when they lived at the tower right before Ultron and everything went to shit. Before and after that, they were incredibly tense and it wasn’t his ideal vision. Tony knew it was only two days, but he sensed no such thing between these people. They were more like a family who argued like crazy siblings...When Tony realized that, he just thought “well good for them”. He didn’t want to think about the Avengers. Compared to the Guardians, The Avengers before Siberia were a ticking time bomb not giving a fuck about anyone or anything. 

Tony sat back as he talked with Quill, talking about Earthean music as Sophia had observed for just a moment with her headphones over her ears across from them, the silver Bose blasting Hi-Finesse to her ears. A small-but still existent smile was about to form when Mantis had touched his arm, her antennae glowing at their tips. 

“Um-” Sophia started loudly, pausing her music and yanking off her headphones.

But she couldn’t speak when Mantis was now shrieking. 

“Mantis!” Gamora exclaimed.

“OkayokayOKAY!” Sophia urged, leaping off the leather to rip Mantis away from Tony’s arm. She was sobbing and nearly blubbering. “Calm down, calm down, calm down, Mantis!” She coaxed softly.

“What happened?!” Tony asked, obviously stunned and concerned by what just happened to the pale alien.

Sophia swallowed. “Mantis can feel emotions and such when she touches someone. So if you’re bursting out laughing, she can touch you and feel it surge through her. But if you’re sad…” Sophia was about to start her next sentence, but she stopped herself, not wanting to make anything obvious. He just met her and the Guardians, for god’s sake. His personal trauma was not needing to be a subject. At least she would call it personal trauma, from her assumptions. Or maybe he didn’t have any, at all. She knew she couldn’t be right about her biological father’s every detail. 

Sophia sighed. “You fucked up, Mantis, but I’ve done worse.”

“No, I think he’s fucked up,” Rocket speaks up. 

“Shut UP!” She barked loudly. It actually startled Tony, Sophia’s new tone. 

The redhead closed her eyes, her breath hitching. “Just give him space. He can even go to the spare room if he wants, it’s right by my bedroom.” She turned her eyes to him. “You might want to sleep, anyways, you look really exhausted.”

Tony opened his mouth. 

“Please...or at least lay in a bed-they’re incredibly comfy. Kingsdown beds are the best.”

Tony stood up, giving up on his short-lived fight. “Not much of a parent, am I?” He muttered to himself. That increased Sophia’s frown. 

When Tony was officially gone from the living room at the sound of the bedroom door closing, Sophia spoke. “Well, that’s the fuck-up of today!”

“I am sorry-”

“I know, Mantis, but you can’t just randomly touch new people! Most people don’t want their feelings publically spread around like that-and now a team of freaks to him know what he actually feels like constantly!”

“Like I said, he’s fucked up!” 

“Shut up, you asshole of a raccoon! You’re not helping or being of any meaning to this conversation!” Sophia yelled. “Mantis now knows she’s not going to randomly touch people and that’s the end of it.”

“He must’ve gone through a lot to feel like that,” Quill whispers. 

Sophia plopped back down in the black leather. “I know, Quill, but it’s not our business to pry.”

“Well if I can’t pry on him, then I’m gonna pry on the internet!” Rocket announces. He activated the internet search engine on the table, popping a screen into the air.

Sophia rolled her eyes. “What’re you trying to do? Analyze every emotion he feels, Coonhole?”

“I’m just curious!” He claims. “Sheesh! Loosen up, will ya! I thought teenagers were not as uptight as you are!”

“Well if you met me when I was thirteen and didn’t have a mother in a coma, maybe I wouldn’t be so uptight, sometimes! Besides, you’re judging me too early. Don’t think you know everything, now, that’s my job!”

“Pff! Keep telling yourself that, kid.” Rocket looked up Tony Stark. What came up was tons of stuff involving “Leipzig” , “Siberia” , and “Captain America gone rogue”. His facial expression drooped when he, along with everyone else, saw a Youtube video of the airport battle. From the airport battle video, it went to an article on the leaked Siberia incident that nearly left Tony dead. Then, it was an article covering why Captain America went rogue in the first place. Something about a killer robot and a treaty. 

Quill had watched the closest, or at least he thought so. He couldn’t stand seeing the clips anymore. “Okay, that’s enough.”

Surprisingly, Rocket turned it off. “That’s harsh, man. That’s really harsh…”

* * *

Tony couldn’t sleep, though, in his room. He had to admit that the bed was incredibly comfortable, but what had just happened would not dissolve. Seven people just saw something that no one needed to see. Mental note to stay away from Mantis, as much as she didn’t mean it...Or at least he tried to convince himself.

A vibration zinged on his phone. It made him blink, at first, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t recognize her strawberry blonde locks and her eyes as the contact photo came across his phone. 

Tony kinda wanted to scoff. She only called him now after the months it’s been without calling him? He had to leave the planet for her to call him? But he didn’t express that in any way except for in his own head. 

He was serious. He didn’t know whether to pick it up or to leave it. He loved her, Tony did still love her. But Pepper...Pepper couldn’t deal with all of the Avengers shit. It wasn’t like this was new, she’d been very tolerant. But hey, she nearly died because of his own suits which weren’t even anything having to do with the Avengers, so maybe…

 

No. 

 

She left. She left and there was nothing more to it. 

 

Tony had tried his best. Pepper was everything he loved and everything he tried to protect. At the end of everyday, he felt like he failed to do that. She was genetically altered and nearly killed with the Extremis, the Vanko situation could’ve killed her in Monaco, and it gave her a share of incredible stress on top of being CEO of Stark Industries. But she was a busy woman, now, with the weight of everything on top of her…

 

And she calls him. 

She came back to what brought her the world of harm she lived. 

 

The concept didn’t quite click.

* * *

 

Within a few more hours, they finally landed outside of the empty Avengers Compound in Upstate New York with no major hassle. The ship had a stealth mode beyond any security detection’s reach, or the government would have some major questions. 

The ship hatch opened up and Sophia now found it hard to stand up. Earthean grass and an Earthean sky. 

 

It’d been a fucking long time. 

 

Sophia pushed herself up and headed down the ramp. This was the first time she’d felt the Earth in over a year, and it was actually wonderful. The oxygen felt more familiar, as odd as it was, as well as the gravity and just about how everything felt. It was a rush of blood to the head, and a jolt to put her back into motion.

Tony felt it even more. It was nearly a bad feeling, getting re-adjusted to the Earth. God, he thought he might fall over. He didn’t, though. Quill, although, did notice his slight stumble. He asked the brunet billionaire if he was okay, even though he wasn’t in Quill’s opinion. Sophia, who now saw Tony coming out of the ship, thought the same. 

Even through his iffy state, Tony lead the team and Sophia inside the compound. Impressed wasn’t exactly what Sophia thought when she saw the place, but it wasn’t a scrap of metal. A year ago, she would’ve felt more excitement. But after seeing space and luxury and technology in insane amounts? Her definitions changed.

 

He thought about it as he walked in. The biggest guest room was kinda close to his bedroom, but it should probably be okay. He didn’t know what she liked to eat, though, ‘cause she’d probably be hungry. Pizza-who didn’t like pizz-pizza it was because he couldn’t think of anything else. Clothes-clothes, of course she needed clothes! Well, she may have clothes on her ship in her closet. She mentioned she had tons of leather jackets and sweatshirts including a Ravenclaw sweatshirt from Universal Studios, so she could’ve been fine. Belongings-personal belongings, did she still have any she wanted back in Orlan-

“Tony?”  
  
Tony had paid literally no attention to anything as he walked, deeply absorbed in settling his apparent daughter into the compound. So deep that seeing one person he hadn’t seen in a while and another he’d seen five days ago only slowed his previously speedy pace. 

Tony’s brows furrowed. “You dyed your hair.”

Yes, it was true. Pepper’s usually strawberry-blonde locks were now a bright copper red in her classic ponytail that she wore to work. Her clothes matched, wearing a blush pink chiffon button-up loosely tucked in with white slacks. 

Pepper would take no commentary. “Who are they?” She asked straightly, looking behind Tony. 

...Shit, Tony had never really taken in that they would be aliens in the compound if anyone came...such as Pepper and Rhodey. 

“Ummmmmmmmmmmm-”

“We’re the Guardians of The Galaxy. My name’s Peter Quill, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Pepper wasn’t worried, really about him. She was worried about the green lady, the walking raccoon, the tiny tree that sat on a shirtless pattern-skinned man, and the black-eyed girl with antennae.

“Tony, are they from space?”

“Um, well, yes, but-” Tony could only reply. 

“Why are they here?!” She snapped. Pepper wasn’t comfortable, and she didn’t even know why they were there. Aliens were the last thing she wanted to approach. Aliens were what nearly killed him four years ago...But at the moment, at least they didn’t look like they wanted to kill her. The green-skinned woman, however, looked like a deadly killer. But who knew, because she didn’t even know how in the world she had to deal with this right now. 

“We’re here because there was a situation up in space, and the Nova Corp specifically asked for Tony Stark for assistance with her,” Sophia spoke up. From the back of the people, she walked up to the front to face the CEO with minimal nervousness in her voice and appearance. 

“Who are you?”

“I’m, um...a newfound relative,” Sophia replied lowly. Her pointing finger and thumb danced around with each other, but no other major motions than that. 

Rhodey hadn’t spoken the whole time, Pepper being the first to address everything out of what Rhodey could surmise was fear. Not that he wasn’t afraid-Tony just went to space and back he came with aliens and a “relative”?

“Relative?” Rhodey questioned. 

Sophia rolled her teeth across her bottom lip. “Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Tony can, uh,” Sophia takes a large breath between words. “Talk to you about that. Not my place to talk.”

“She’s my daughter,” He blurted. 

“I didn’t think he’d speak so soon,” Sophia muttered. 

“Um, can we talk to you somewhere private, Tony?” Rhodey asked. It was more like a demand, them rushing him over to the left and inside the corner. 

“Man, what the hell is going on?!” Rhodey whisper-shouted. 

“You went to space and came back with aliens and a ‘quote-and-quote’ daughter?!” Pepper scolds. 

“Can I like, explain to you, what happened up there in the first place?!” He snapped. It shut his former lover and best friend up.

“Thank you. So what happened is that the Guardians came to Earth to inform me of a fourteen-year-old daughter than I never knew I had-which I thought Nove aborted-”

“Where’s Nove?!” Rhodey interrupts in worry.

“And she had just gotten the attention of the Nova Corp by killing an ally of a mad titan, so the Guardians came to get me to bring her back to Earth. As it turns out, Sophia was alone for nearly a year after her mom was shot into a coma by Kaiton, so she ran away and has been doing God knows what for seven months in a spaceship hopping across the galaxy.”

The explanation threw Pepper off by about a billion miles, but Rhodey felt thrown off like a trillion, but they were both as perplexed as could be. How did Tony even have a daughter in space? Space, of all places? She could be running around Earth doing God knows what on Earth-but in space? That was a hundred times more of a story than Earth. Even Pepper knew that Earth was an ant compared to what was beyond them, and Tony further convinced her of that by his worry of what if a New York was repeated. She’d listened when it was his biggest concern-well…

 

_ “And I have to protect the one thing I can’t live without. That’s you.” _

 

Her belief in the line had always wavered or had been jostled to one side or the other. Tony blowing up the suits wavered her one way, but him eventually needing to work with the Avengers again some months before Ultron jostled her to the other. His life was erratic, and she had always tried so fucking hard to keep with it…

 

She’d even went back and forth if she could. 

 

“So why are the Guardians still here?” She asked, trying not to say aliens. As much as she would always think of aliens as what nearly killed Tony, she could at least be polite to a squad of some who aren’t trying to kill him in the slightest. Or at least appear to not want to kill them, at the absolute least. 

“The Nova Corp. wanted them here incase something happened, to keep tabs. Plus, they have nothing else on schedule, I guess, they just bounce around space doing jobs for people to get paid or saving the galaxy.”

“Are they like the Avengers of space?” Rhodey said. 

“Pretty much, but much better, I conclude at the moment.”

“And they’re just gonna stay here?”

“There’s plenty of guest rooms, Rho-”

“Are you sure everyone will be okay with them here? I dunno, Tones, I think you’re out of your mind-”

“I’ve been out of my mind since day one, Platypus.”

Rhodey deeply sighed without blinking. Pepper did not blink, either. They were both apprehensive-incredibly apprehensive. But it was not surprise that Tony could make them that way with his antics, but this was barely an antic...This was a newfound “relative” (which Pepper assumed meant daughter) and six aliens who they’ve never heard of in their entire lives-one was human, but of course, he was still an alien just the same as the rest of them. It made no difference because they were from somewhere so different…

 

Rhodey thought he could adjust, but Pepper thought it would be a slow process if she even could.

 

“Okay,” Rhodey could only whisper. Pepper couldn’t speak. 

 

Tony exhales. “Well, I gotta assign rooms and settle everyone in. Uhhhhhh hang tight,” He finally says, walking to grab his tablet to sort out rooms. The only thing the duo could do was just stand there and watch as what they were apprehensive about being around got “settled”.

* * *

  
  


Sophia hadn’t found it hard to unpack her clothes...or at least to her. Kahndi, one of her friends back on Xandar, would’ve found it exhausting to fit maybe eighty articles of clothing in her closet, plus five pairs of shoes, underclothes, and other things. When she went to space, she wasn’t fucking around with her clothes. She was like her mom: a clothes obsessed-person. 

So for now, she lied on her bed on her phone. No, not her iPhone, what she rarely used since she moved to Xandar. No, she used a Stellarsoft phone, a rose gold backed device with a full edge-to-edge screen with holographics and everything she could wish for in a phone. It was what Apple would make in an iPhone within another two decades. She found it pitiful.

 

She heard a knock on her door, making her put her phone down on the comforter. “Come in.”

The door opened up and he stood in the doorway. “How you doing, kid?”

“Fine. Thanks for the room, it’s really nice.”

“Ah, it’s no problem. Wasn’t your house kinda like here, though?”

“Yeah, it’s just a compliment, Stark. Take it.”

“Okay then.” 

Sophia rolled her eyes, but she re-focused, about to thank Tony for everything he’s done, but he spoke first, now sitting on the edge of her bed. 

“I’m sorry you’re going through this, I really am. But I’m trying. The whole dad thing is new, really. And my dad was never there for me...but I want to be there for you if you need me.”

Sophia’s lips curled by maybe two centimeters. “Thank you...I appreciate it,” She replied softly. 

“No, really, Soph. Your mom’s nearly gone, you have no other family or friends, you spent almost a year alone and you killed your mom’s shooter. You’ve done so much in just a year...Believe me, I know how that feels on multiple occasions.”

“Eight years of hell...I have no problems in comparison to you, really.”

“You’re fourteen, you went to space, you came back without your mother by your side and with a biological father instead.”

Sophia exhaled. “Both of your parents are dead. You were tortured, you nearly died on numerous occasions, the love of your life has nearly died before, everyone you love has had their lives threatened, your health slowly cripples, you’ve been betrayed, you’ve been ridiculed, I don’t know what fucking trauma is, Stark, so don’t act like my case is more important than yours.”

“My case?” He blinks. 

“I’m not clueless. A man doesn’t go through what you do without wondering if anything’s worth it.”

Tony didn’t really comprehend what she was telling him, here, because she didn’t know him, at all. “What’re you trying to tell me, here?”

“Don’t forget about taking care of yourself to care for me. I get it if it’s some parental sacrifice thing, but that’s harsh, so don’t forget about yourself, okay?”

“I’m supposed to look out for you!” He argues. 

“Yeah well life will never be what it’s supposed to be, is it? No. But hey, you can try. Stepping into the role of a parent when your kid’s fourteen and you know nothing about them is hard. Take it easy, will you?”

“Sure, whatever, but you’re the top priority here.”

“Did you listen to anything I just said-what the hell did I just say, Stark?”

“Take care of myself.”

“Yeah. Do that.”

Sophia, who was in Nike tempo shorts and a PINK sweatshirt, stood up and yanked off her comforter to start to snuggle down underneath it. “I’m going to sleep. I’ll probably continue my settling-in process tomorrow. I just want some rest. Oh, and would you mind turning out the lights for me, on the way out?”

Tony does so as he was stopped at the doorway by Sophia’s voice. He turned his head back to the redhead, only her head peeking out of the comforter. 

Sophia took a breath. “Thank you, though...For everything.” She took another, but with more hesitance. “I’ve never had a father, before, honestly. I know it’s a long process...but maybe we’ll get there, one day?”

Tony nodded and closed the door, a tiny grin stayed on his face until he went to asleep, himself. 


End file.
